Photosensitive sol-gel waveguides on silicon substrates as MOEM devices

Integrated optical components formed by sol-gel process and MEMS devices created on silicon substrate can be used to realize different types of sensing elements for smart structure applications. In this paper we report the fabrication of Ce, Ge and (Ce+Er) doped sol-gel based waveguides on silicon substrates and their optical characterization in terms of light amplification and photosensitivity. We also report results of fabrication and characterization of Bragg gratings in sol-gel based waveguides. The number of layers required for waveguidance and single mode operation has been calculated using the dispersion equations for asymmetric planar waveguide